Oliva 135th Ann. - O135DJE - Darrin Jackson - The Encounter
One of my favorite custom builds by far, the challenge was to make one of my Oliva 135th Anniversary cigar boxes into a versatile, stage- and studio-ready instrument that would please a devoted Fender Stratocaster player, Darrin Jackson (The Darrin Jackson Encounter, etc.). Darrin's dad commissioned this one, and I wanted to make it something special. This was my first attempt at replicating the Strat-style configuration into a CBG, and I tried to make this one special for someone who I know is a local performing musician. I went with an all-maple neck, because come on, if'n you're gonna' play a Fender style instrument, you can't go wrong with a maple-on-maple neck, especially fitted with some tried-and-true vintage Kluson-style tuners. At the other end of the strings, I picked a solid, smooth and reliable Wilkinson hardtail bridge. To capture all those "Stratty" sounds from "biting" to "glassy" to "throaty", I went with so...
